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Sail-World.com : .
As the summer season winds down, a number of great championships are still in action.
Soon it will be time to reflect on a great season that was, and time to reassess the race program and start checking the gear and inventory requirements for next season. The North Sails team are looking forward to helping clients as this preparation begins in earnest.
| dfdfdf> | dfdfdf>0066cc>Inside North Sails
cc0000>North Sails dominate Etchells Worlds 2009 starting fleet |
Having won nine out of the last eleven Etchells World Championships it’s not surprising that North Sails again dominate the starting fleet of the 2009 Etchells Worlds.
Gazing along the Royal Brighton docks on Sunday before the Invitation race, Ross Lloyd from North Sails Melbourne smiled - the blue North Sails logos were everywhere.
 | Bertrand Ainslie Palfrey setting up for the run - Steve Hall |
‘We seem to have gained even more market share over the last year amongst the Etchells fleets. We really have worked hard at making the sails faster and sailors who have been on-water testing have figured that out for themselves. I think the biggest thing that everyone has come to realise is North Sails have the widest range and they suit different masts and different conditions.
However in the Etchells fleet, having the fastest sails isn’t the only guarantee of speed and North Sails Australia’s Sales and Marketing Manager Julian Plante commented dockside at Brighton. '‘The standard of the Etchells fleet is always rising, and those who spend more time on the water racing and testing tend to improve the most. We work very hard on our fleet support with the comprehensive tuning guide, trim seminars, and dockside support at regattas, and that makes it much easier for crews to come up to speed. It helps shortcut the learning process to get the best out of their sails.
'In fact Cocko and I found that we also needed to spend more time in the class, as other yachting time demands had taken us away more than we would have liked, and consequently I have been doing most of the Etchells regattas this season, with Cocko joining us for the Worlds.
'With the calibre of multiple world champions and Gold medallists in the fleet the standard is so high, and you need to have the best possible team, and having him on the boat allows me to focus on the steering and the setup to get the best speed out of the boat.’
Michael Coxon (Cocko), the CEO of North Sails Sydney, is proud of the two Etchells design ranges, the Australian designed range and Vince Brun’s North American One Design loft range. ‘What’s happened is instead of us saying to the market ‘you must have this sail’ we say to people ‘we have these models; they’ve all won regattas. They have all won or have been on the podium in World Championships in the last few years.
‘Our North Sails PCM mainsail won the Worlds in England. The PC Plus won the Worlds last year. So all of these are regatta winning sails. Rather than dictate to the client we say, 'if you want to have a play, have a play with North Sails.' And this year it’s clear that a lot of guys in the Melbourne fleet have put a great deal of effort into this (championship) and were getting out there and testing sails. They seem to have found the North sails were testing better.
‘We have three North Etchells main sails and in these 2009 Worlds, all on competitive boats. Alistair Gair, the Kiwi, is using the PC-M (M for Moulded) Rob Brown is using a PC Plus, John Bertrand is using a PC-F.
‘They are all based on our original PC main sail, which I developed 15 years ago. From there the PC Plus was then worked over by Vince Brun, who modified it to better suit the American masts which are softer, and two to suit lighter conditions and more open water, such as in San Diego.
‘Then the PCF, (Flatter) which had just come out, got second in the last Worlds as an experimental sail with Chris Busch. It is basically a PC Plus with less luff curve. Again it’s chasing masts.
‘Although the Etchells are all going to be the same, the masts certainly aren’t. The PCM suits the Australian mast, which is stiffer than the US masts that are softer in the middle.
‘We also have a good range of Jibs and Spinnakers to choose from to suit different regatta styles and venues. Regardless of all that, once the sail choices are made for the regatta, it is time for the results on the water to do the talking. With 86 boats for the worlds we are looking at a fun week.’
| dfdfdf> | dfdfdf>0066cc>Inside North Sails
FF0000>North Sails wins 18 foot Skiff Worlds |
North Sails Sydney CEO Michael Coxon goes back a long way in the 18 footer class and he was a very interested observer of the 2009 JJ Giltinan Shield, the 18 foot Skiff World Championship on Sydney Harbour.
‘I watched all the races; I reckon it was the most exciting sailing I’ve ever seen. Everyone I have spoken with thinks so too. It was because it was Sydney Harbour in absolutely fickle conditions. I think from that point of view it was absolutely fantastic.
‘Obviously I am very pleased with North’s winning the regatta; we’ve continued to do a lot of fine tuning of our 18 footer sails. In the last 25 years, our sails have won every JJ Giltinan World Championship but one, and one shared inventory. Three seasons back was the big change in 18 footer sails, with North Sails going 3D, and we got the whole fleet going fast.
‘The thing I got most out of the 2009 series was that on the only steady day, they had, North Sails took 1, 2, 3, and 4. That is what I was looking for, because the rest of it (the regatta) was really lottery stuff.
‘I think that’s where you have to hand it to Euan McNichol and his Southern Cross Construction team, Aaron Links and Trent Barnabas, who won the 2009 title. They didn’t start well. They had a few races where they were up amongst the leaders at the first mark but overall their starts were just woeful. …
‘But they had confidence in themselves, the ability, the smarts and the speed to put away good results. Everyone focuses on the last day. What they did do was to have all the other boxes ticked and with experience and maturity, they chipped away and didn’t make too many mistakes. That’s what got them out of trouble on the last day.
‘The young guys, on Gotta Love It 7 (Seve Jarvin, Sam Newton, and Tom Clout) no doubt had the fastest boat out there, but they had the pressure on them. They will have to reassess the head game. Sometime they made some brilliant decisions and sometimes they made some that were less so. I think they were too focused on individual boats rather than sailing their best race on the day. I think that it actually came back and bit them. It was all so close.
‘The British team of Andy Budgen, Matt Mc Govern and James Barker on Project Racing impressed me a lot. They were sailing an old boat and got a good result.
‘Budgen was an Olympic 49er coach and they are a quality outfit. They trusted their judgement. They were doing things that I wouldn’t be doing on Sydney Harbour ….. but I was wrong and they were right. As an armchair spectator I was saying, 'where are they going?' They sailed with a lot of confidence and what impressed me about them was that they sailed with a disregard for everyone else. The
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10:16 PM Sun 8 Mar 2009 GMT
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